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Split: A Memoir of Divorce
 
 
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Split: A Memoir of Divorce [Hardcover]

Suzanne Finnamore (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)


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Book Description

April 17, 2008
Bestselling and award-winning author Suzanne Finnamore writes a story of divorce that is “brilliant” (Augusten Burroughs) and sure to become a classic.

There are certain books that come to epitomize their painful subject matter, offering solace to those who share the same fate and pleasure to those who merely appreciate fine writing. What The Year of Magical Thinking did for grief, what Drinking: A Love Story did for alcoholism, now Split does for divorce. Prescriptive yet full of pragmatic advice, insight and black humor, Split is a finely wrought tourniquet for a broken union and its attendant trauma.

Suzanne Finnamore, author of the novel Otherwise Engaged, didn’t see it coming. Well, perhaps she saw something—for example, a cocktail napkin on which her husband, N, had scribbled a Cole Porter love song and someone else’s name—but she refused to acknowledge it. She was busy tending to their one-year-old son, then applying makeup, donning high heels, and mixing a martini to greet N with when he arrived home at night. Until the night N came home, told her she looked beautiful, changed his clothes, and announced that he was leaving.

In crystalline, riveting prose, Finnamore tells the story of her divorce, and her marriage, and how it all imploded and came back together, changed. At once quite funny, achingly sad, and unflinchingly fierce, Split will resonate with anyone who’s endured the end of a relationship.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

California journalist and author Finnamore (The Zygote Chronicles) renders a sharp, cut-to-the-quick account of her painful divorce after five years of marriage. Living in the canyons of tony Marin County with her marketing v-p husband, N, and their toddler son she calls A, the author is devastated by N's announcement that he wants a divorce—and yet she is not surprised. In brief, astute chapters riddled with a dry, deadpan humor, the author reconstructs this surreal journey from giddy romance with a suave older man (she is 40, while he is in his 50s), through motherhood and the dawning suspicions of his infidelity, to his abandonment and denial that he is involved with someone else. Finnamore enlists various characters to see her through her crisis, which spans denial and anger, grief and acceptance: her jaded, long remarried mother, Bunny, who brings the pain-killers and stocks the house with junk food; her no-nonsense diminutive friend Lisa, who remarks upon hearing the news of the divorce, You have no idea how I have longed for this day; and her vehemently antimarriage childhood buddy Christian. Eschewing a divorce lawyer, Finnamore manages to come through with the help of her friends and conveys in this frank, winning memoir her supreme vulnerability and bravery. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In this mordant memoir, novelist Finnamore takes readers through the dark, devastating days of her divorce. She begins with the moment her then-husband, referred to only as N, announces he’s leaving (he tells her she’s beautiful first), tracing her traumatic emotional journey through denial, anger, bargaining, grief, and, ultimately, acceptance. It’s not that there weren’t signs: a woman’s name scribbled on a cocktail napkin, a small volume of Zen poetry amorously inscribed to N. But Finnamore can’t believe that a relationship sprinkled with romantic moments and satisfying sex became so ravaged and raw. Finnamore changes names and details to protect the innocent. She also directs plenty of invective at her ex (though she says the two are now best friends). Part advice manual, part rant, this potent read percolates with Finnamore’s acerbic wit: There are so many marriage ceremonies, she writes, there ought to be one for divorce. Instead of rice, people could throw fistfuls of cash and light hallucinogens. --Allison Block

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Dutton Adult (April 17, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 052595046X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0525950462
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #725,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

34 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended, August 18, 2008
This review is from: Split: A Memoir of Divorce (Hardcover)
I have read every book on this subject (divorce). Although it came out a bit late in the day (decade) for me - or rather for my own divorce - it still provided still needed succor. Funny and beautifully written and studded with sentences you will want to write down. Highly recommended.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very true portrayal of women going through divorce, May 14, 2008
By 
This review is from: Split: A Memoir of Divorce (Hardcover)
I could not put this book down. Finnamore brings the utter angst, grief and full gamut of emotions one experiences when getting divorced in this wonderful memoir. I look forward to reading her novels and wish her the best.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Change The Locks, May 1, 2008
This review is from: Split: A Memoir of Divorce (Hardcover)
One Friday evening, Suzanne Finnamore's life splits wide open. She stands in her kitchen in black cigarette pants, checking her lipstick and anticipating the weekend when her husband strolls in the door, gives her a kiss, grabs a martini, and, very soon, delivers the life-rending blow.

He states it simply and explicitly, "I. Want. A. Divorce." After telling his devastated spouse that he deserves happiness, he packs, puts on his best blazer and is out the door.

What about her? Both the reader and the soon-to-be-former wife wonder.

Split is painful and enlightening to read as Finnamore recounts her despair and eventual recovery. (She assures us in the preface that both she and her son are well and happy, so I'm not giving anything away.) What is delightful and riveting about the book is that Finnamore is a fine writer with a quick and insightful sense of humor. What could be bleak and discouraging turns out to be quite the opposite.

The heroine (and she is one) may lose N, as she designates him, but she gains insight from her more-than-delightful mother, Bunny. The morning after the leave-taking, Bunny shows up with a fifth of Jack Daniels and a half-gallon of butter pecan ice cream. Now there's a mom! Bunny isn't the only one to stick by Finnamore. Her friend Lisa is always there for her and never, ever, there for N. Lisa is wise. She knows just when to reveal some difficult truths and when to offer moral support.

Some people say that divorce is harder than widowhood because the jerk keeps showing up. Both are the loss of a relationship; mourning must be done. Finnamore casts her successful journey to recovery in terms of the classic model of loss, moving forward across the stages from denial through anger, bargaining, and grief until finally arriving at acceptance. And she does it with good nature and understanding.

Consider, for example, a few of her entries: "Ten Simple Yet Elegant Tips for Divorce;" "Change the locks;" and "When confronted with a practical question regarding fairness to your ex, err on the side of lifetime vendetta." Clearly, these are from the "Acceptance" stage.

While anyone who has been part of an ending relationship, whether through divorce or otherwise, will appreciate Split. The audience is not that limited. All readers who enjoy a skillfully written memoir will relish this book and be looking for more Finnamore to delight in.

by Patricia Nordyke Pando
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
By the time N left, running out of the house one evening with nothing but the clothes on his back and a voluminous gym bag, I had loved him for seven years. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
duh duh
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Thing Woman, Betty Lady, Russian Hill, Sawed-Off Madman, Joseph Spikenard, Mill Valley, The Divorce Lady, San Francisco, New York, Valentine's Day, Irreconcilable Differences, Follow the Pfizer
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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